Posts mislead on Moderna CEO Twitter account, stock sales
Written by ABC AUDIO on February 19, 2022
The claim: Moderna’s CEO deleted his Twitter account and ‘dumped’ $400 million in stock
As clinical trials on omicron-specific booster shots continue, online users are using Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel’s deleted Twitter account and recent stock sales to suggest something nefarious is afoot.
“The CEO of Moderna deleted his twitter & dumped $400M of Moderna stock,” reads a Feb. 12 Facebook post that accumulated more than 300 reactions within a week. “Big Pharma seems to know some bad news is coming.”
The post includes a screenshot of a Feb. 12 tweet from conservative filmmaker Maggie VandenBerghe that accumulated more than 26,000 likes. Similar versions of the claim have been shared to Facebook, Bitchute and the Reddit forum WallStreetBets.
“Moderna CEO Just Dumped $400 Million in Stock and Deleted His Twitter Account,” reads a Feb. 12 headline from News Punch, a site previously known as Yournewswire.com that has in the past shared misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks
While Bancel has deleted his Twitter account, it’s misleading at best to say he “dumped” $400 million in stock.. Bancel has sold shares of Moderna every few days since at least 2019, and the tally only reaches $400 million if you add together the hundreds of transactions over that span.
There’s no evidence the sale and Twitter account deletion are related.
USA TODAY reached out to VandenBerghe, News Punch and the social media users who shared the post for comment.
Bancel didn’t ‘dump $400 million’ of stock
Bancel’s personal Twitter account was removed at some point prior to Feb. 11, and news reports and transaction records show he has been selling predetermined portions of Moderna shares on a weekly basis.
A message on Bancel’s Twitter page says, “This account doesn’t exist.” It is unclear why the account was deleted, but the most recent archive of his active page, captured in November 2021, shows he hadn’t used the platform since April 2019.
Records of Bancel’s Moderna stock sales from Insider Screener, Wall Mine and Yahoo Finance show he has sold shares every week, but he did not sell all of his holdings. He still owns 21.8 million shares of Moderna’s common stock as of Feb. 14, according to Forbes.
The SEC-tracking site SecForm4 says Bancel has sold $404 million of stock since November 2019.
During the week of Feb. 9, for example, Bancel sold 19,000 shares of Moderna at approximately $155 a share for $2.9 million. He sold another 19,000 shares the week prior for $3.1 million. There is no transaction listed for $400 million. The most shares he has ever sold at once was in February 2020, when he sold 33,134 units of Moderna for over $750,485, according to Wall Mine.
The SEC filings of the February sales say the transactions were made in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which allows company insiders to set up predetermined sales to prevent insider trading. Bancel’s sales were part of a trading plan from December 2018 that was amended in September 2019 and May 2020.
As noted by Quartz, Bancel has sold shares of Moderna stock since 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic and the development of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. No changes were made to his plan prior to the February sales.
USA TODAY reached out to Moderna for additional comment.
Fact check: Claim that hackers published Pfizer, Moderna ‘vaccine death data’ is false
Our rating: Missing context
Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that Moderna’s CEO deleted his Twitter account and “dumped” $400 million in stock. Bancel’s Twitter account is no longer active, and archived versions of his page show he barely used the platform. Calling this a stock dump is an exaggeration. Transaction records show Bancel has been selling predetermined shares of Moderna stock on a weekly basis since at least 2019. In February, he has sold an estimated 19,000 shares a week, or about $6 million worth in the first two weeks of February. There is no evidence the two events are related.
Our fact-check sources:
- @sbancel, Feb. 11, Twitter page archive
- @sbancel, accessed Feb. 16, Twitter page
- @sbancel, Nov. 2, 2021, Twitter page archive
- Insider Screener, accessed Feb. 15, Stephane Bancel
- Wall Mine, Feb. 11, Stephane Bancel
- Yahoo Finance, Feb. 15, MRNA Insider & Restricted Shareholder Transactions
- Forbes, Feb. 14, Moderna Stock Crash: Losses Top $140 Billion As Insiders Sell Millions Of Dollars In Shares
- SecForm4.com, accessed Feb. 18, 2022, Insider Trading – Bancel Stephane
- Securities and Exchange Commission, Feb. 11, Statement of changes in beneficial ownership
- Securities and Exchange Commission, Feb. 4, Statement of changes in beneficial ownership
- Investopedia, Jan. 14, Rule 10b5-1
- Quartz, Feb. 13, How much Moderna stock Stephane Bancel owns and why he just sold $1.8 million of it
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app, or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
The post Posts mislead on Moderna CEO Twitter account, stock sales appeared first on Correct Success.
